Freed from liveblogging by the very able Marcy Wheeler today at noontime, I took some time to decompress in the main courtroom this afternoon. That gave me a chance to think through some questions I’ve been asked by my FDL peers as well as commenters and other folks around the courthouse.

First of all, thanks to you all for your wonderfully supportive comments and attaboys. The best way you can help out — thanks for the dinner invites! — is to donate here to support our FDL efforts to bring you trial liveblogging, highlights, interviews with involved parties, and commentary.

Second, I want to say how much more I appreciate Jeralyn, Marcy, Christy, Pach and Jane’s coverage of the Scooter Libby trial. A federal courthouse is an intimidating place, the procedures sometimes impenetrable inside and outside the courtrooms. It’s very much a ‘closed guild’ you’re likely not part of — and the liveblogging itself is damn hard. I mean, really hard. It’s as if I’m trying to connect my ears with my typing fingers without engaging my brain. Plus we get to sit in hard wooden ‘pews’ that don’t really have a place to put a laptop. Also no coffee or water permitted in the courtroom. And only ten minute breaks twice a day!

Third, ‘disconnecting my brain’ has been the most difficult. I choked up listening to the named plaintiff parties talk about the challenges and discrimination they face. I choked up not because these were unique difficulties these couples faced that I’d never heard of. No, these were (mostly) things that have happened to me. Getting past the ‘glorified roommate’ stage in naming the person you love and live with, when talking to family members and friends. Getting that raised eyebrow and askance look from the desk clerk (most recently in Chicago at Netroots Nation, of all places!) when he says, “Oh, there’s two men, it’s a king-size bed, there must be some mistake, right??” And not having a comeback when someone asks “what kind of a partnership is it?” when you aren’t a partnership — you’re a committed loving family of two (or more) and you just want to be treated like that by the rest of the world, which happily recognizes and treats like a joyfully formed unit anyone else and a life partner, as long as you’ve selected one of the opposite sex.

And then there’s the sex. Oh, not the sex, but the emphasis on sex. I mean, why does my partner get labeled my ‘lover’ even though we’ve had a fight and I’m still sleeping on the sofa three days later? I mean, doesn’t that sound like a typical sitcom husband, for pete’s sake? Do married opposite sex couples have to use the word ‘lover’ to describe their relationship? No! And… usually when a heterosexual married person speaks of his/her lover, you immediately know something illicit or illegal is afoot. A married heterosexual person who says “my lover” doesn’t mean the other party on the marriage license.

Which brings me to the next aspect — the outlaw aspect. Until Lawrence v Texas, of course, our lovemaking was illegal. Still, in many states, we can be denied housing for who we are. I recall looking for apartments — nice, expensive, Georgetown apartments! — and having snooty real estate ladies say, “Oh, there’s two gentlemen? Well, then I can’t show you a ONE bedroom apartment!” Higher commission for her of course, and reinforced prejudice for me. And jobs aren’t secure in MOST states — being gay is an acceptable reason for firing someone. I mean, can you imagine coming to work one day and being marched down the hallway and fired in front of all your librarian peers just because you’d been discovered to be gay, as George Chauncey described in testimony about the publicity attendant to arrests on morals charges in New York City? Well, the functional equivalent — being fired for being gay — still happens every single day in America. And it is legal. And if you’re closeted still, what do you say to your friends and workmates even if you weren’t humiliated in front of everyone? That you quit? I mean, who quits a job in this economy, really?

What so much of it came down to in this trial so far, is this: Why does the world care so much, really? And yet, you realize very very early in life — exceptionally early for many of us, before we ever realize quite why — that the world cares an incredible lot about who you think is hot. Or, as the Defendant-Intervenors’ several Learned Counsel put it so often, if you have “an erotic and emotional attachment to persons of the same sex.“

So it’s hard listening to this trial, watching these lawyers hired by a bunch of bigots who had to step in to defend discrimination because the governor and the attorney general of California couldn’t really be bothered, thinking as they do (apparently) that Prop 8 is really unconstitutional. These lawyers who, in trying to get plaintiffs’ expert witness Letitia Peplau to explain that homosexuals really aren’t so demonized, demonize us all over again by describing how gay men aren’t faithful to their partners. Even when the expert witness describes how study after study shows that gay men do not value monogamy in their relationships and therefore don’t view outside sex as a betrayal, as lesbians and heterosexual couples do, Defendant-Intervenor Counsel Moss still tries to get Peplau to say, “Well, yes gay men are cheating sluts.” I mean, what does that have to do with their marriages, really? Are they so afraid that marriage will be redefined to allow ALL men to be the cheating sluts they characterize gay men?

That’s what she wanted to hear, mark my words.

And then Defendant-Intervenor Counsel Moss trots out statistics tables (in French and Dutch, no less, but conveniently {accurately? who knows!?} translated into English) about marriage in Belgium and the Netherlands. She tries to walk Plaintiffs’ Expert Witness Peplau through a whole bunch of very-late-in-the-day hypothetical mathematics she claims to have done to show that Dutch and Belgian gays marry at the rate of 3% or 4% while straights marry at the rate of 43% or 47%. As she got completely tangled up in her math, she was asked by Judge Walker if she would please just get to the point.

Counsel decided to go to her next topic, pretty much abandoning the Dutch and Belgian non-marrying gays to a limbo we can only hope they remain in for the rest of the trial. (I mean, WTF?)

The next topic being, of course, whether lesbian or gay couples ever have accidental children. Something we needed to question an expert witness about? Really?

Previous to Wednesday, I tried to point out that there was some parallel being made by plaintiffs counsel, working with George Chauncey, between the Anita Bryant campaign to SAVE OUR CHILDREN in Miami-Dade a generation ago, and the PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN campaign waged by Prop 8. This was extraordinary — you could hear a pin drop in the overflow courtroom as people realized that this demonization, this creation of the monstrous hyper-sexualized gay out to recruit and corrupt your innocent children, came about after WW2 as there were men, excluded from the benefits of the GIBill because of non-service or dismissal from service, who gravitated to big cities and became a ‘social threat.’ This threat was of course taken up by that screaming queen J Edgar Hoover and his Chief of Staff, best friend, constant breakfast/lunch/dinner partner and ‘roommate’ Clyde Tolson alongside military police and civilian forces eager to see funding streams continue as the war effort wore down.

The threats to innocent children have been ongoing, you see — whether from men in offices, men in schoolrooms, women in gymnasia, child care providers, or scouts. There is something so threatening about sexuality, and our own children’s discovery of it, that it can be used to demonize an entire class of people with a ‘lifestyle they’ve chosen‘ even when such is actually an immutable characteristic.

And of course it’s an immutable characteristic. Just ask any fundie when he or she ‘chose to be straight.’ (Well, not any fundie — don’t ask Ted Haggard and those darling Parsley lads he surrounded himself with. Serious gayface in that book of church employees, I’m telling you!)

Next time, I promise I’ll tell you about several other things, including a more nuanced discussion of the whole ongoing ‘disclosure? did too! did not!’ conversation that is enriching the entire trial, as well as the elevated cool kids table, with several tables pushed together just like in junior high, where the hero plaintiffs and hero attorneys (except for David Boies, who sits out with us little people) hold court in the courthouse cafeteria throughout lunchtime.

But that’s for the next indepth post. For now, thank you for your support and thank you for your interest in this effort. It’s been great all reading your comments every evening, sitting in my little home-blogging nest. I especially enjoy reading all the new commenters — “they love me in Finland!” has become quite the rallying cry chez Bear.

We’re thinking of renaming the blog TeddyDogLake. I think 7 of the top 10 traffic diaries were your liveblogs yesterday, Teddy. That’s a record I’m pretty sure.

You’re a machine. And it has meant so much to so many of us to be able to experience the trial through your eyes. What an amazing experience you’re giving all of us — and people around the world who can’t be there.

Just ask any fundie when he or she ‘chose to be straight.’ (Well, not any fundie — don’t ask Ted Haggard and those darling Parsley lads he surrounded himself with. Serious gayface in that book of church employees, I’m telling you!)

Teddy, you’re the man, honey! I am so proud to have been reading your words since you were TeddySanFran and I’m so impressed with your live-blogging. And thank you so much for sharing some personal thoughts. I have grown as a person just by the grace of your having shared your life with me through this blog. Hugs!

TP try to get the gist down, well i missed that part and just go on
libby trial, jeralyn christy pach jane marcy did a really great job place to come for liveblogging
during primary wars too, debate
so when trial came up and we realized might not be broadcast or youtube,
decided somebody needs to go and how to get in
overflow court, laptops there
i got in the front row first day, set up nest w mifi
not even wifi

This threat was of course taken up by that screaming queen J Edgar Hoover and his Chief of Staff, best friend, constant breakfast/lunch/dinner partner and ‘roommate’ Clyde Tolson

A self hating Gay Man forms a government secret police agency

Ernst Julius Röhm, (November 28, 1887 – July 2, 1934) was an Imperial German army officer and later a Nazi leader. He was a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung (“Storm Battalion”; SA)[1], the Nazi Party militia and later was the SA commander. In 1934, he was executed on Hitler’s orders as a potential rival, although this was done ostensibly as a reaction to Röhm’s well-known homosexual tendencies[2].

TP we dont have access even to the language of established couplehood in america
use those words to describe important people in our lifes
not boyfriend

NS – term lover means extramarital affair what about partner

TP are you an attorney – partner not wife/husband
in chicago when patrick and i went to netroots to check in
middle aged aged person looked at askance, raised an eyebrow, must be mistake
i have a king sized bed here
yeah, thats right
that was 2007
you just dont expect that
would be easy to say yeah thats my husband

all you need to know is one word – spouse
and that word is allowed to hetero couples
hard to liveblog, keep emotions out

Because hetero males wish that they had access to sex as much as gay males may if they so choose, and they take that frustration out in the form of homophobia. What these het guys, even smart hot ones, have to go to through in het mating rituals for a low chance at a hook up is astounding.

… “Well, yes gay men are cheating sluts.” …

The lack of taboo on gay male promiscuity within long term committed relationships means that it is not cheating unless you’re breaking the rules.

This threatens the foundations of marriage at its core as far as the fundies go, but who could seriously argue that simply because some gay men will have nonmonogamous marriages that none should be allowed to at all? Some het marriages, probably many fewer, operate under the same mutual agreement.

What is more likely is the approach of “with rights come responsibilities,” and we’ll see another sex panic to put us all back in line.

NS – this should have been televised, do you know why no cameras? in federal court

TP – have been cameras in federal courts for a long time, i believe they dont allow *broadcast*
outside the courtroom. in cases of great interest like Libby, 4 yrs ago, cameras, huge media room,
public overflow courtroom where people could work/watch, and the record gets preserved.
isnt a question of technology

NS- of course – they have the technology. its a shame. so much of middle america, never heard
a gay couple talking about their…it would open eyes, educate people, wait a minute these are
human beings, they should have the right to what i have the right to

TP- defendants wanted no broadcast. judge vaughn walker ruled it would be simulcast to 7-8 courthouses primarily because the judges and attorneys wanted to see the proceedings, then they would also capture it and put on youtube in segments so eventually we could all see it, networks, cable, and we could talk about it. but people who won prop 8 on ballot didnt want televised, their witnesses feared retaliation because of harassment experienced in CA during prop 8 – which of course wasnt the case at all – it was the opponents – gay and lesbian who experienced the harassment – dont know who it came from, no one was really charged. boycotts against business, fear about testifying about their hateful and bigoted views

NS – all i could think was, american people should be able to see this. prop 8 passed november 4 which outlawed the CA gay marriages which had been taking place for how long

TP – people started getting married in june 2008, court ruled in may, fundamental basic civic right. prop 2 [22???]
out, limiting marriage to one man one woman. people married SF 2004 san francisco city hall but those were invalidated by supreme court

NS – lesbian couple plaintiffs had that happen

TP – city hall, then private wedding ceremony august 1 2004 then 2 weeks after, 100+ guests in yard, families, their 4 children, after ceremony where they affirmed, they got letter from city hall saying your marriage has been invalidated. supreme court ruled this is not a legal marriage. what about your fee.

Reading the blogging from the trial has been very emotional for me. I have known I am gay since I was five years old; I am now 44. And I have spent my entire life hearing the dominant culture tell me that I am inferior because I am gay. And it still bothers me — it REALLY bothers me. I do not understand why straight people have to be better than gay people. I cannot believe that 30 years on, anti-gay straight people are pounding the same drums and telling the same lies — and people are still listening! People give them the benefit of the doubt! People want to believe them! Oy. Very upsetting.

TP – i was in similar circumstance – my man and i engaged feb 13 2004 we thought we’ll get married someday and it went away. before prop 8 passed re marriage equality, talked about it, knowing on election day people were able to vote, and then we did not know whether or not the court would take those marriages performed in the window away, like the san francisco marriages. we decided not to get married in that window. subject it to the capricious state of CA – oh you can get married, oh you cant get married. doesnt sound like the majority community is ready for it to be permanent.

NS – back w teddy partridge liveblogging the prop 8 trial in CA for firedoglake.com and doing amazing job. ask about attorney for plaintiff, david boies and ted olson against each other in bush v gore and they teamed up to defeat the ban on same sex marriage. hows their chemistry

TP – theyre doing a great job. i was amazed you could have state case for this. boies almost got gore elected. i could not believe he was with ted olson. but olson had articles for conservative case for gay marriage. there was always a part of the LGBT community that felt that it was a privilege thing. they both have had tremendous experience at the supreme court, olson won 48 out of ?56 and theyre expecting it to go to circuit court and then supreme court. no question to get in front of supreme court. there lawyers get interruped, peppered with questions. 2 minutes in, judge vaughn walker started asking questions. olson taken aback, thought he could do trial opening without interruptions

It’s hell on earth. Oh, no, wait — that’s Haiti. Stop complaining, Teddy. No one cares about your puny first world problems.
Amazing. You made me cry, again, because when I got off work tonight and started watching the news I was dumbstruck. I hadn’t watched any of the coverage of Haiti because, well, I was here reading your work. The incredible horror of what those people are going through does not diminish the importance of the Prop 8 trial. Not at all. I’m just trying to wrap my mind around the context of everything. Not to mention Pat Robertson.
Thank you Teddlydoglake. Tomorrow’s another day and I hope I can sleep tonight. I’m blessed. And, I know I’m spoiled.

Thank you all so much for the work that you are doing. When I read how this was all thought out and planned from the beginning I just was sick to my stomach. I mean I knew about the current BS but I never imagined the time and effort put in to keep us down for all these years. I was floored! This is so important to share with the rest of the country. Each of you that are involved are doing an awesome job! Keep up the good work. As a native Californian transplanted to Texas and raising a teen the couples stories combined is my story, it’s all of our stories. I stand with you and support you from Houston with LOVE….Thank you from the Bottom of my heart!

Like many of you, I came here during the Libby trial, when FDL showed something that we take for granted today … that a blog can do much more than the MSM for much less $$$.

Time after time, FDL shows that it does not represent politicians, it represents the voice of those who have no voice in the public forum; and those who get just lip service but no true representation.

Can anyone explain the strategy Boies and Olsen are pursuing? I mean all the testimony so far is quite respectable and informative and well conducted, but I fail to see how it amounts to an assault on Prop 8. So far as I know the public has a right to pass any stupid bigoted amendment it wants, so long as it passes Constitutional muster.

Darling Teddy –
you do a great job in this post(natch) of describing the attendant difficulties of liveblogging – you really don’t have any idea yet of just how superb a job you have done so far do you ?? been around here as long as you and dear Teddy, I am effin’ impressed – it is liveblogging of the calibre we spoiled rotten firedogs are used to around here –

and somehow imbued it all with your warm spirit and clearly very large heart, that ‘badger’ is a lucky fella

Teddy, I have not been able to read as you go, but I have been mostly keeping up with the blogging at the end of the day. I am so impressed with your skills to keep us all informed, and I think the trial is really outstanding in showing the breadth of the homophobia, etc.etc. Very effing crystal clear.

Thank you so much, you have been a monster typist, and I hope you know I mean you have been doing the most awesome job EVAH.

First off, Thank You Teddy, Marcy and the entire crew for the fantastic job of LiveBlogging this monumental trial. Since y’all are right there on-the-scene I was wondering if you could answer a question for me. I am aware that the SCOTUS has issued an indefinite hold on Video broadcasting of the trial, but I have not been able to find out if this would also preclude the ability to make Audio Only recordings of the proceedings for later posting to YouTube with maybe just some generic background (since YouTube is video based).

At any rate, thank you all once again for the superior job you have been doing to keep so many of us informed. I will be Tweeting links to the FDL Prop 8 page repeatedly today, as I have done for each of these past few days. The best LiveBlogging of this historic trial is right here, on FDL!

Bois and Olsen are establishing a record showing that the state has an interest in expanding the opportunity to establish stable households to more of the population. They have demonstrated that the interest of the state in households is not exclusively with the regulation of sex and reproduction.

They have also demonstrated that the discrimination against homosexuals is of recent origin, and not “traditional” or rooted in common law. They have shown that many of the laws against homosexuals have been repealed, and that there is evident harm done by the remaining ones.

I’d say they’re doing a bang-up job. The defense seems to be “it’s icky! and we’ve always hated them! And besides, they don’t want to get married anyway!”

I’ve always liked the term lover as it indicates that love is involved in the relationship I’ve enjoyed for 38 of my 62 years (63 next month)

“Partner” is despicable. Law firms have partners, AND I HAVEN’T MADE MY LIFE WITH A LAW FIRM!!!!!

While the Supremes have put the kibosh on You Tube this trial is not being ignored or covered up. It’s being talked about all over the place. There an interesting piece about the judge in the Wall Street Journal. He’s allowing all sorts of things to be discussed in this case, thus sctoching in advance any basis for appeal becaus “X” wasn’t considered.

For the first time in an official public setting (forget the fact that its a court case) Teh Ghey is being talked about in full and the phobes have been put on the carpet to defend themselves — rather than be taken at their twisted word.

As I post Rage in Heaven is running on TCM. This was Christopher Isherwood’s first screenwriting job when he arrived here in Los Angeles in 1938.

Let me repeat that — 1938.

You’d swear he spent all his time in Berlin with Liza Minnelli from the way the “Mainstream” treats him. But that was only a few years at the close of the Weimar Republic. He’d come there looking for boyfriends and in order to escape the stifling horror that was England. He was already famous. Somerset Maugham had memorialzed him in The Razor’s Edge (yes — it’s all about Chris) but he hated the place. After Hitler came to power he returned to England to change his underwear and pack his bags for America — taking his old pal (and in the university days ex-boyfriend) W.H. AUden with him. Auden stayed in New York, but Chris wanted Hollywood — and got it. After a few midtown residences he settled in Santa Monica Canyon in a tiny house on th side of it with a great view of the pacific. It was and still is The Edge of The World. After several boyfriends (Most of whom drank like the fishies –drinking was big in those days) Chris met a 15 year-old knockout named Don Bachardy out on the beach at Will Rodgers State Park ( the gay end of it is of course referred to as Ginger Rodgers State Park) and they were together for life. In the mid-60′s Chris thought he was going to lose Don, and wrote A Single Man — recently made into a truly superb film by Tom Ford that you all MUST see.

When I arrived in L.A. in 1976 I use to see Isherwood quite a lot as he was always at the movies. Bouncing around in a pair of tennies he was the world’s oldest teenage boy. Warm, generous, talkative — a superemely happy man. And he was in great shape until about a year before his passing when a series of illnesses laid him low. Don is still very much around, having established an identity of his own as a superb portrait artist. But he is also Keeprer of the Flame — a duty he greatly enjoys.

Ever the rebel Chris wouldn’t have married Don. But he would have fought like hell for everyone else to have the right to marry. And their love story stands as a sterling example of what this is all about.

I stumbled upon you yesterday and am so thrilled at what you are doing. I can’t thank you enough. I currently live in Virginia where at this moment anyone performing or participating in an unsanctioned marriage ceremony can be fined, jailed or both. My wife and I took that chance anyway…a big finger in the face of these stupid laws prohibiting us from making a legal commitment. I could go on… but what I want to say is THANK YOU!! Thank you for keeping us abreast of the situation and what is happening. – much love – virescentgirl :)